FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

IMTC TO HOLD FIRST-EVER MARKET INTEROPERABILITY LAUNCH EVENT AT DVC SPRING '98
IMTC MILE Demonstration to Showcase Multi-vendor, Multi-protocol Interoperability

DVC '98 Spring, Booth #145

SANTA CLARA, Calif., April 27, 1998 - The International Multimedia Telecommunications Consortium (IMTC) today announced its first-ever Market Interoperability Launch Event (MILE) to be held April 27 through 30 at DVC Spring 1998.

The first public demonstration of its kind, MILE is an extensive demonstration highlighting the interoperability of IMTC member companies' diverse multimedia conferencing products and services. The event is designed to showcase how these products and services based on the ITU conferencing standards can work with each other, or interoperate across various platforms.

"By hosting innovative demonstrations such as MILE, the IMTC and its member companies are demonstrating their commitment to fostering the development of the multimedia conferencing industry," said Matt Collier, president of the IMTC and vice president of new business development at Polycom, Inc.

At the demonstration, visitors will be able to witness first-hand interoperablity between and across:
· H.323 for video (audiovisual) communication on Local Area and Internet Protocol (IP) networks.
· H.324 for high quality video and audio compression over modem connections
· H.320 for videoconferencing over ISDN
· T.120 for real time data conferencing (audiographics).

Seventeen companies showcasing more than 30 products will be participating in the MILE event, including:

8x8, Inc.	Polycom, Inc.
Accord Video Telecommunications	RADVISION, Inc.
DataBeam Corporation	Sony
First Virtual Corporation	VCON
Intel	VDONet Corporation
Lucent Technologies	VideoServer, Inc.
Madge Networks	Winbond Systems Laboratories
OutReach Technologies	White Pine Software
PictureTel

In addition to the MILE event, the IMTC will be presenting a three-day tutorial titled "IMTC University" at DVC '98 Spring. With sessions on "Fundamentals of Multimedia Conferencing," "Multimedia over LANs," and "Multimedia over the Internet," the tutorials will highlight the technological issues behind multimedia communications and videoconferencing.

Research has indicated that end users consistently point to the need for interoperable solutions to ensure that they are not tied to proprietary technologies and to protect their capital investment in multimedia conferencing equipment and technology. The IMTC's MILE demonstration, as well as the organization's interoperability testing events, is laying the foundation for the development of seamless, global multimedia conferencing solutions.

About the IMTC
The IMTC is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting, encouraging and facilitating the development and implementation of interoperable multimedia teleconferencing solutions based on open, international standards - particularly the multimedia teleconferencing standards adopted by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU). The San Ramon, Calif.-based consortium includes more than 140 member organizations from around the globe. Membership is open to any interested party, including vendors of audio, document, and video teleconferencing hardware and software; communications companies; teleconferencing service providers; end users; academic institutions; government agencies; and non-profit organizations. The consortium's Web site address is http://www.imtc.org.

Since 1996, the IMTC has hosted more than 30 interoperability events around the globe to test T.120, H.320, H.323 and H.324 products and services for compatibility with each other. On July 13 through 17, the IMTC will host "SuperOp!" -- an annual extensive, international technical testing event for diverse multimedia conferencing products and services within and across multimedia teleconferencing protocols. This year's IMTC SuperOp! event, to be held in Honolulu, Hawaii, is co-located with Microsoft's TAPI Bake-Off event, and sponsored in conjunction with the IMTC by GTE, Microsoft and 3Com. The event is anticipated to be the highest attended interoperability session to date with more than 100 companies expected to participate in the testing of both existing and unreleased products. For more information on the IMTC SuperOp! event or other IMTC activities, please visit the IMTC Web site at: http://www.imtc.org.